Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The reactionary Israeli prime minister 'Bibi' Netenyahu has informed US president Obama that Israel won't give America warning when it attacks Iran.

By agreement, the US is not obligated to come to the Zionist state's aid, since Israel will have initiated war like actions. But, owing to mad temper of the times in the US, it probably shall for its own pigheaded policy towards Iran.

If Israel carries out its threat, Tehran will rain down missiles on Israel, killing more civilians than military. You can say, Israel deserves it, but the broader geopolitical implications spell disaster for the Zionist state, the region, and the tyranny its holds on oil & gas.

As the parliament of fowls cackle in the White House, department of state, and Pentagon, US policy towards North Korea has reached another rung in desperation.

Admiral Robert Willard, commander of the US Pacific Command, acknowledged that the Obama administration, as GuamDiary has long commented, is using food aid to bend North Korea to its demands to abandon the DPRK nuclear program.

The US has used food aid as a weapon before; it has worked, though he sent many children and the elderly to an earlier death. Consider Iraq, the Bush administration had to mount a duplicitous Madison Avenue like campaign to get America behind his invasion of Iraq. And today, the Iraqi are picking up the pieces of a disaster Bush & co. visited on their country.

GuamDiary keeps scratching its head, asking, as it has done time and time again before, hasn't the US North Korean clerisy learnt a thing about North Korea. The DPRK basks in its ultra nationalism; it is fiercely proud of its history and country, so threats like denial of food aid won't work. For the US, under Obama, cut off all aid since 2008, and somehow North Korea hasn't collapsed. That should tell our fine feathered North Korean experts something, but, alas, it doesn't. They keep chirp, chirp, chirping the same hoary melody of sanctions, punitive measures, and the like which have always run into a stonewall of failure. You'd think they'd learn something. Wrong!

What a waste of taxpayers' money! And, the tragedy is: the Obama administration will continue on its path of folly. Hasn't anyone read Mike Chinoy's 'Meltdown'?

The US-North Korea exploratory talks in Beijing will broke on the question of food aid. The Obama administration had already promised aid in food shortly before the sudden death of Kim Jong il. His untimely demise allowed it to put the matter on hold until Washington could revisit it with the new North Korean leadership.

And yet, as we learn from the press, North Korea and the US are in disagreement on what is meant by "food aid".

The US is offering 240, 000 tons of food, with a large dollop of fortified milk and high energy bars; North Korea is wanting 300,000 tons mainly in grain.

For North Korea, fortified milk and high energy bars simply won't meet the feeds of its people on the verge of starvation; for milk is hardy a staple in the country's diet and high energy chocolate bars is more fitting for US GIs' mess kits. Grain will go a long way in feeding North Koreans.

You have to really wonder if the US is ingenuous in its desire to "coax back" North Korea if it continues to play games with food aid. It is important to recall that the Obama administration cut off all aid in food to North Korea; it has used food as a political weapon to bend Pyongyang to agree to Washington's demands. The results of this policy have been nil, and yet, the US continues a wrong headed policy.

You have to wonder if after more than 60 years, the US has learnt anything about North Korea.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton hogged the air waves by denouncing China and Russia for vetoing the US and Arab League sanctions against Syria, and call for Bachar Al Assad to step down.

Her anguish and frustration are at fever pitch. She's mad, really mad, but like the Brother Grimms' big bad wolf huff and puff as she likes China's and Russia's support of Syria won't blow down.

Has no one in Washington read old KGB spy and journalist Primakov's writings on the Arab world he knows so well?

Assad is no poster boy of cheer and benevolence, yet Moscow and Beijing think the US assault on Syria not only ham fisted and wrong. US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan tell a sorry tale of what Syria would be like if the US had its way. Chaos and civil strife. The turmoil in Lebanon should serve as a moral tale, and the worm of confessional war in Lebanon's roots lie in Eisenhower's decision to send in the Marines in 1958.

China and Russia are looking to ease Assad out in a way to avoid Syria's collapse, we think.

We also know that like the Bourbons, the US, from its own history, has learnt nothing and forgot everything.

'Made some progress'...'opened a window of opportunity', says Glyn Davies, the US North Korea co ordinator. Diplomatic speak. Go back to mid Summer and mid October 2011, please: the language is more or less the same.

The best, GuamDiary, can say: the US is talking to North Korea.

If the Obama administration thought that it could make headway with Pyongyang because it has a young 'untested' leader Kim Jong eun, they thought wrong.

We wonder in what lofty stratosphere or bottomless pit float the US North Korea clerisy. The North Koreans have consistently formulated positions, but the jesuits in Washington, think tanks, and ivory university tours parse words for hidden meanings; they would challenge adepts of the Kabbala or the alchemists on Swift's floating island Laputa.

Talks will continue in months down the line, yet unless the US softens its tack, well...and in this presidential election year, nothing new will happen.

If Lee Myung bak GNP loses the Blue House in 2012, well, we can hope a 'thaw' in US DPRK relations might happen.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Jake Trapper woke up the sleepy press briefing at the White House today.

The ABC White House correspondent took issue with Jay Carney, Obama's press secretary during a tribute to two fallen journalists in Syria--Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik.

Trapper caught Carney unawares by saying that although the US president likes reporters' aggressive and challenging work abroad, he is quietly 'killing journalism' on the home front.

By that he meant, the department of justice combative behaviour in going after whistleblowers, as well as reporters doing their job in pursuing a good story without taking cues from government or private interests, to get at the truth.

The Obama administration's record tells the story in going after whistleblowers in the press, even though it itself readily 'leaks' information cut to fit its own purposes in the press. Under Obama and his predecessor Bush fils, freedom of the press in the US has been pushed on the ropes. The White House has come in swinging hard and fast.

Little wonder someone like Bill Keller of the 'New York Times', backed by the Gray Old Lady's lawyers run to Washington to clear stories, lest the newspaper of note will face the government's wrath.

Bravo Trapper. Let's hope the feckless media drink deeply from the source of your courage. Let American journalism at home be as brave and daring as it is covering hot spots abroad.